4 ms·
Young people on antidepressants more likely to commit violent crime
- phren0logy 11y agoThis not a reasonable conclusion based on the available data. There was no comparison to a similarly depressed or anxious group who were not prescribed medication. Also, due to the "criminalization of mental illness," many children/adolescents come to the attention of the mental health system due to violent behavior, so there is a strong selection bias for those who are aggressive to enter treatment vs those who suffer in silence. Further, depression/anxiety are also risk factors for drug/alcohol use, which are well established as contributors to violence, and those don't appear to be controlled for with a comparison group either. It's possible (though in my view unlikely) that SSRIs could meaningfully increase the risk of violence, but this is not a study that can make that conclusion. Source: I'm an MD, board certified in general, child, and forensic psychiatry who works with mentally ill offenders.
- 001sky 11y agoLink to original article. http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.0030372 http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/jou... there is a section on 'data', of which here is one sample The data submitted by GlaxoSmithKline on paroxetine for review by the Committee on Safety of Medicines Expert Working Group are described as a complete set of data from all placebo-controlled trials of this drug [5]. The use of this dataset thus involves no selection by the authors, and any selection bias there might have been on the part of the company seems unlikely to have increased the size of the problem. Data from placebo-controlled trials of sertraline in children are also presented, as these also offer a complete dataset, so minimising any selection bias.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]